Apart
from me and Jeremy, Jade had another admirer, an Englishman a
few years older than her. We never met. When she first
mentioned him to me, she giggled. They used to joke around, apparently. She teased
him about his age. He teased her about
her figure, called her his lamp post – she was very thin. But you know what men
are like. It was probably what attracted
him to her.
Anyway, he had loved her faithfully
for a number of years with absolutely no reward. Things weren’t about to change. Titters again, but we can laugh a little, regarding
lamp posts and girls. Could he find
nothing more romantic to say? Perhaps
she wouldn’t let him. Toothpick,
rake? Better not mention it at all. I don’t know if she called him something back, Fido,
for instance. His lamp post, her poodle.
The point I’m making is that Jade was
very thin. Thin as a punting pole. After our picnic in Cambridge, we hired a punt. I was a novice. Jeremy picked up the pole to show me what
to do, and for a short while he propelled us very skilfully along a channel
of the Cam. Jade thought she’d have a
go. Give it to me! She had been on the
river a few times. She clutched the
pole like a bird of prey. I remember her
arms, bare to the neck, just tendons and bone.
She had to lean towards me to push down on
the pole. When her head came over, gravity
did the rest with the front of her blouse.
The Cambridge physicists were spot on there. It worked every time, before I
had a chance to look away.
Lily pads, on the surface of the stream, the river sailed serenely by.
Lily pads, on the surface of the stream, the river sailed serenely by.
Jade soon gave it up. Jeremy looked asleep. It was my turn to punt, and I did it for a long
time. They lay back in the boat and watched
the trees on either bank touch branches overhead. Now and again, Jeremy said, “You’re doing
well.”
The river then forgot his voice, and the bird calls and the splashes near the boat were all that you could hear. Except for the hiss on Jade’s puny radio.
We'd hired the boat for an hour or two. When I stopped punting, Jeremy shed his final compliment. The same one, in the past tense now.
I did well.